“I’m not taking up with anyone, remember? That’s why we’re doing this,” he teased, pulling her closer.
Relaxing into him, she agreed, “Exactly. So let’s focus on why we’re here.”
Jax flicked the vibrator to the on position, holding it up, the gleam in his eye wicked and full of the devil. “Your wish is my command. You want this Terminator on high or low?”
“The Annihilator,” she corrected, giggling again just hearing him say the name. “And I don’t know. I’ve never used one before. Have you?” The first thing she’d done when Jax had agreed to this was hunt for the vibrator Dixie and the girls had given her when she’d signed her divorce papers and declared men were dead to her forever.
She’d hidden it away in one of her old trunks in her walk-in closet and never looked back until the other night when she’d remembered a phone call Marybell had taken with a man who wanted her to pretend she was using a vibrator.
If she’d listened to her mother, all sexual paraphernalia came from the devil’s personal toy box and was distributed by his filthy minions. End her curious, fifteen-year-old questions about them after she’d overheard a Magnolia talking about her vibrator back in eleventh grade chemistry class. Her mother had squashed all open conversation about sex all her life.
What she knew, or whatever misconceptions she might have about sex with anyone but your husband were from the internet or late-night TV and, these days, the conversations she heard the girls having with clients. Being as it was her mother who’d decreed all sex toys vile and sinful, made it the first thing Em wanted to discover.
“Wait. Was that too personal?” Did she want to know if Jax had used sex toys with another woman? Yes. No. Strike that from the record.
“Not too personal. And yep. I’m familiar.”
When would she learn to shut up? She didn’t want visuals of Jax with other women when they were in bed—even if they were remaining detached while in the bed. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. I just read it heightens the sexual arousal between a man and a woman. So I thought in the interest of new adventures...”
Jax swiped his tongue over her breast all while the vibrator buzzed in her ears. “I gotta admit, it’s a little hot. Not as hot as me, mind you, but it’s hot to watch.”
He was going to watch, and it didn’t even make her blink an eye. It turned her on—gave her that achy tingle in her belly—a tingle of anticipation, making this one of the best decisions she’d ever made.
“Then let’s start with low,” she managed, but it wasn’t easy with the way Jax hovered over her on his knees, his naked body, rippled with muscle, sharply drawn by the flicker of the candles he’d once more lit. She’d only seen small bits of him last night, but tonight, she’d seen all of him, drank him in like he was a bottle of the cheap wine she loved so much. And she hadn’t looked away then, either.
She’d also finally caught a glimpse of the word tattooed just beneath his left pec and found out it was a name. Maizy’s name, right beneath his heart. It was the little things about Jax that made it harder to remind herself she didn’t want any part of this man’s personal life.
He was a good father. His love for Maizy was undeniable. His fear today when he’d thought he’d lost her was proof of that. And now, his daughter’s name just beneath his heart, tattooed there forever? It made her swoon-y, and that was the hardest piece of Jax to fend off. The respect she had for him, her admiration of his raising a little girl without the aid of her mother.
“Low it is,” he grumbled in his scratchy-sexy voice just before he wrapped an arm around her waist and slid her upright, the cold of the guesthouse wall against her back harsh at first.
Jax propped pillows behind her then kissed her long and slow, his tongue scraping over her teeth before he pulled away and put his hand between her thighs, pushing them apart with gentle hands.
The brush of his fingers on her inner thigh made her shiver, the feel of his mouth as he kissed his way along one set her on fire.
Em’s fingers found the plaid flannel sheets beside her, twisting into the fabric as Jax tongued his way over the crease in her thigh, nudging it with his head until she let her leg fall back on the bed, bending at the knee. Exposed and vulnerable, her first instinct was to clamp her legs shut, but Jax’s words stopped her dead. “You’re so damn sexy, Em.”
Em gulped, warring with how hot his words made her and how forbidden this should feel. But it didn’t feel forbidden. It felt alive, and exciting, like a celebration of her sexuality. She’d never had this kind of attention in words as well as actions. Clifton had never told her she was sexy anywhere, but especially not in the confines of their bedroom.
She’d weep for all that she’d apparently missed if Jax wasn’t dipping his fingers between her aching folds, slipping them through her slickness in agonizing strokes.
Her stomach muscles tightened at the first sip of his lips around her clit. A slow draw, the flick of his tongue and then the cool night air on her flesh made her want everything all at once. His mouth made her dizzy, weak, as he teased the swollen bud.
The vibrator hummed in a distant sort of far-off way until he spread her flesh and drew it between her folds. Em moaned a sound, shuddered a breath at the suddenness of this new sensation.
Jax laid the tip of the vibrator alongside her clit, letting her adjust, moving with the stir of her hips and then his tongue moved against the swollen bud, too, and she thought she’d die of the pleasure.
Her gasp was loud and sharp with surprise, but the combination of his mouth on her and the hum of the vibrator had her silently begging for more.
Jax pulled away just as she touched the fringes of orgasm, making her open her eyes and look down at him with frustration. His head between her legs, his mouth so close to the most intimate place on her body was almost more than she thought she was capable of handling.
But she couldn’t look away. She didn’t want to look away, and when Jax asked, “Do you like that, Em?” she couldn’t answer, her throat too tight. Was this what two people did when they were in it just for the sex? Did they create still shots just like this, and when it was over, forget it ever happened—never to call to memory something this painfully incredible?
Fear she wouldn’t be able to let go of this—this amazing thing she was sharing with him—grabbed hold of her lungs. And then it subsided like the tide, it rushed back out and she found her balance again.
Her fingers threaded though his hair and she nodded. “It’s pretty great,” she managed in a rasp before she had to close her eyes and just succumb to the insane things he was doing to her body.
“You can always holler uncle,” he muttered on a thick chuckle, licking at her, moving the vibrator up and down.
“Never,” she wanted to scream, but somehow kept to a low whisper.
Jax poised at her entrance, the hum a delicious tease. “Never, huh?”
Her nipples tightened to hard points in anticipation, her hips lifted in an effort to encourage. “Never.”
“Never’s a long time, Em.” He said that strategically, she was sure, because it was just at that moment that he slipped the vibrator inside her and clamped his mouth over her clit.
“Oh!” This time she did scream, forcing her to put her knuckles in her mouth. Oh, God. She’d never survive this. Her blood would boil over, and she’d be found lifeless, albeit sated, right here in Jax’s guesthouse.
“Was that an uncle I heard from up there, Em?” Jax taunted, drawing the smooth length in and out, positioning it at a place inside her she didn’t even know existed.
Her heels dug into the mattress, she clenched her teeth, beads of sweat formed on her forehead, but she wanted. Oh, heaven forgive, she wanted more. Her chest rose and fell, the winding, twisting heat between her legs grew, but she answered, “Not even close.”
Jax twisted the vibrator as he plunged it into her and licked her in one long pass. He flattened his tongue out, scraping it along her swollen clit until she saw stars and colors from behind her eyelids.
She didn’t have a second left in her, not another moment of this unmerciful torture left. The stretch of the vibrator inside her, buzzing and setting her on fire combined with Jax’s hot, wet tongue sent her right over the edge before she had a chance to grab hold.
Her nipples went tight and painfully hard, her muscles contracted around the width of the vibrator as she thrust her hips downward onto it, driving, feeling, needing every last drop of this orgasm.
Shudders racked her body, goose bumps skittered along her arms as she came until she slumped back, boneless and weak.
Jax withdrew the vibrator and the buzzing instantly stopped. Her eyes popped open to find Jax setting the Annihilator on a plastic crate.
Instead of grabbing a condom like she thought he would, he moved her over on the bed and got in next to her, pulling up the scratchy army blanket to her chin and tucking her next to him.
His actions perplexed Em. Wasn’t it his turn? “We’re not done, are we?” she half joked, half really wondered. Fair was, after all, fair.
Jax’s chin rested on the top of her head in a pause she didn’t quite understand, but then he said, “Just for the moment.”
As Em lay there, held tight in his arms, their bodies curled together, she tried not to read anything into the odd look in Jax’s eyes just before he’d climbed in beside her and pulled the blanket up under her chin.
She tried not to worry he was mad about the Annihilator. She tried not to love lying here with him like this. She tried to figure out what he needed right at this moment. Then she tried to figure out how she was going to stop trying to figure everything out and try to remember she wasn’t supposed to care how he felt other than in a bed.
Her insides just weren’t cooperating.
But she was really, really trying.
Really.
Fourteen
Jax scrubbed his hand over his face, lobbing his pen at the desk. The chirp of the office phones had become background noise to him. The scenarios played out beyond his office walls nothing more than white noise.
He was growing used to being here at Call Girls. He liked working for Dixie and Caine. He liked the women who worked here, and he really liked knowing Em would be here every day. Avoiding the hell out of him, refusing to look at him, lifting her cute nose the other way when he came into the room, but here just the same.
Em, Em, Em.
He was never going to get a damn thing done like this.
Especially not after the other night.
Maybe he should just call it off. Maybe it was stupid to think he could keep doing this and keep her unimportant—at a distance.
Now wasn’t the time to get involved with anyone. Not with Maizy to consider. She was supposed to be his only focus, but Em was eating that promise to himself alive. At first, he’d liked that Em didn’t want to ask him a million questions. That meant he didn’t have to come up with answers for them. He wasn’t ready to explain the parts of his life involving Maizy.
Yet, he was asking Em questions because he was interested—because he liked her—because he couldn’t stop insinuating her image into the life he’d once pictured for himself.
Maizy didn’t help, either. She’d informed him, after seeing her at the school, she liked Miss Em. She was pretty, and she wore red lipstick, and in Maizy’s book, that equaled idol status.
The other day at the school, when he’d thought Reece was there, he’d panicked, but when he saw Maizy with Em, he knew everything was all right. That Em would look out for her—keep her from harm.
After seeing the way Maizy looked at Em, with that admiration little girls have for their older counterparts, he knew she’d be good for Maizy.
But she didn’t want to be good for anyone but herself and her sons—and he thought he didn’t want that, either.
He didn’t. Then the other night, she’d blown him away. There was nothing special about it he could pinpoint. He thought it was cute that she’d never used a vibrator, cuter that she wanted to try one with him. That’s what she was in this for, right? To experience new things.
As long as they were within his parameters, he was happy to oblige.
Until that one moment, that single second when he’d caught Em watching him between her legs. That brief flicker of a moment where her eyes darkened and she became aware of something—that something between them. It existed. It pulled him, touched him, made him just as aware.
He’d needed a minute to process it. Let it sit.
It was still sitting three days later. Three long days where they couldn’t get together because she had the boys and he had a huge glitch in this damn security program he was convinced no one could solve but Harper.
“You forgot your lunch,” Gage said from the doorway to his office. He threw a bag labeled Madge’s down in front of him and pulled out a chair. “Figured I’d eat with you so you wouldn’t be lonely.”
He didn’t want to eat. He wanted to see Em. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he pulled out the deli-wrapped sandwich from the bag.
“So what’s new, big brother?” Gage’s eyes pinned his over a ham and cheese with onions.
“Nothing.”
“How’s Emmaline?” he whispered her name and batted his eyes in the worst reproduction of a woman Jax had ever seen.
Jax shrugged like it didn’t matter how she was. “Dunno.”
“Well, I hope you find out soon so you’ll stop being such an asshole.”
“I’m not being an asshole.”
“Yeah, you are. Who flips out over a wet bath mat like that? You miss her, so you’re cranky. No big deal.”
He bit into his sandwich and considered. Okay, maybe he’d gone a little overboard by throwing the bath mat in the garbage to make a point, but it wasn’t because he missed seeing Em.
It was because he was sick and tired of getting out of the shower only to find Tag had drip-dried on the damn thing without even bothering to pick it up. “It was a soggy mess on the floor. Who gets out of the shower soaking wet like that?”
Gage shrugged his shoulders. “Isn’t that what a bath mat’s for? To protect the floor when you get out of the shower wet?”
“I don’t miss her.” Yes, you do.
Gage dropped his sandwich on the surface of the desk and wiped his mouth with the paper napkin. “Look, whatever, okay? You keep telling yourself this is just you know what. But you’d better get some more you know what soon, or we’re firing you as head of the household—because you’ve been an ass.”
“It can’t be more than you know what.” Shit. Now he’d said it out loud. That meant it held meaning. It meant he was mulling.
“Why can’t it, Jax? Why does everything have to be so complicated with you?”
“Because she doesn’t want it to be any more than that, and neither do I.”
“And you can’t convince her that’s a stupid decision?”
“I don’t want to convince her of anything. I have too much on my plate. Reece showing up for one.”
“So you really think that was her at the school?”
He’d put everyone on red alert since that day. Maizy was to leave from school with no one but a Hawthorne. Ever. “I know it was damn well her. What I don’t know is why she’s skulking around Plum Orchard, showing up at Maizy’s school, calling my number, but not returning my calls. I’ll tell you this, she better stay the hell away from Maizy.”
“I agree. So what does Reece have to do with Emmaline?”
“Nothing.”
Gage rumpled up his sandwich wrapper and shot it into the garbage can. He leaned forward, his face ha
rd with anger, his words icy. “You know what, fuck you! You don’t have to talk to me about it, keep it all to yourself, whatever. But I’m going to lay it on the line for you because I’m sick of you using the kid.”
Jax’s eyes widened. “I’m not using my kid.”
Gage made a face. “Yes, you are. Maizy isn’t the answer to your redemption, dumb ass. If you make her your only reason for living because you think you have to fix what happened, you’re gonna be one lonely man someday. Maizy’s going to run out of the house screaming the second she can, just to get away from your overprotective crap.”
Jax held up a hand to shut Gage up.
But Gage didn’t want to be shut up. “She’s not learning about healthy relationships—she’s learning how to carry grudges and isolate herself. You’re a pretty good father now, Jax, but this bullshit you’ve been carrying around since she was born is just that. Bullshit. So someday, when you’re a lonely asshole, and Maizy hates your guts because you smothered the shit out of her and maybe kept her from having another female in her life who loves her like you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Jax didn’t even have the time to react before Gage was shoving back his chair, tipping it over with an angry grunt and blowing out of his office.
He gripped the edge of the desk until his knuckles were white. If he let go, he’d get up, drive home and knock the shit out of Gage. He couldn’t see for the anger—a red, ugly haze where he was smashing Gage’s face against the wall.
“Jax?”
Em put her hand on his, soft, questioning—everything Em. “Is everything all right?”
Jax snatched his hand away, driving back his chair with a shove so hard it hit the wall. He came around the desk and dragged her to him, simultaneously closing and locking the door to his office. “I am now.” He hauled her against him, lifting her off her feet until she wrapped her legs around his waist.
Something to Talk About Page 19
